


Too Close to the Sun

by dreamlittleyo



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Canon Era, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Infidelity, Post-Reynolds Pamphlet, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 23:16:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15350901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamlittleyo/pseuds/dreamlittleyo
Summary: After the Reynolds Pamphlet, Angelica crosses an ocean to comfort her sister.





	Too Close to the Sun

Angelica should not be surprised. All her cleverness, all her foresight, all her years of close observation… She would never claim to know Alexander better than anyone else—she has spent years trapped on the wrong side of the Atlantic—but she _does_ know him.

From the very start she recognized a desperate kinship in him. They are similar in too many ways. There's more than one reason she introduced him to her sister. A selfish choice, but necessary for all of them. She shouldn't be surprised that Alexander—perpetually restless and unsatisfied—has let them down.

But for God's sake, did he have to shatter Eliza's entire world in the process?

Angelica writes to her sister the same day she makes travel arrangements to return to America. She wonders whether it will be herself or her letter to arrive first. It hardly matters. The letter is only a prelude. It says nothing Angelica won't repeat in person.

_I'm sorry. It's my fault. I knew him the instant I laid eyes on him. I knew nothing would ever be enough. And I put you in his path anyway, because it was the only way I could see to keep you both._

Now Alexander has exposed the wounded fault line at the center of his character, shown it to the entire world. Angelica doesn't know if she will ever forgive him.

An Icarus, she called him in her letter.

She knows full well she will never forgive _herself_.

Angelica doesn't know what to expect when she enters her sister's house. So steady in every other particular of her life, Eliza has never been predictable in grief. When their mother died she cried for days. When they lost Peggy, the response was a storming and ineffectual rage that did not quiet for weeks.

But when Angelica steps across the threshold into the sparsely furnished home, all that greets her is quiet.

"Eliza?" she calls from the entry, and her voice sounds hollow as it carries through tidy apartments and up the narrow stairs. She _feels_ hollow. To know her sister is hurting, and to know just as surely that Angelica has no power to make it right.

The silence is stifling in the small entryway. Angelica wishes she hadn't sent her luggage ahead. Even a couple of porters carrying her things would alleviate the worst of this damnable quiet. She removes her gloves slowly, one finger at a time, and sets them on a small table near the door. A large mirror stands above the table, and Angelica takes in her own reflection. Polished and proper, yet visibly exhausted from her journey. The days at sea were not pleasant ones.

She removes her hat as well, sets both it and her hat pin down on top of the gloves. There is no rational explanation for the fact that her heart is racing.

"You didn't have to come all this way." Eliza's voice startles her, but Angelica gives no outward indication of surprise.

It takes her only an instant to collect herself, and then she turns from the mirror with a sad smile and open arms. Eliza steps forward without hesitation, and Angelica holds her sister in a tight embrace.

"Of course I did," Angelica murmurs, trailing her fingers through soft hair. Eliza nuzzles closer, tucking her face against Angelica's throat. Quiet and strangely calm. Angelica holds tighter and says, "Are you alone here tonight?"

"I've sent the children away," Eliza says softly, and the words are warm along Angelica's skin. "I've sent _everyone_ away."

Angelica hesitates only a moment. "And Alexander?"

Eliza barely stiffens at the sound of her husband's name. "Alexander will be home as late as he can possibly manage. And even when he returns, he'll stay in his office until morning." There's something unnatural in the evenness of Eliza's voice. It seems incongruous in the face of a betrayal so complete. "I want nothing to do with him."

The two of them dine alone. And as evening closes in around them Eliza leads Angelica upstairs. The house is even eerier now, the quiet more smothering than ever by candlelight. Angelica has never experienced the place so empty. The absence of the children makes it feel like a house in mourning.

"I've been sleeping in Phillip's room," Eliza confesses, voice low in the narrow hall. "I can't stand to even _look_ at the master suite, knowing..."

Angelica takes Eliza's hand and makes no reply. She understands well enough. Her own stomach clenches at the very idea of what Alexander has done. To bring a stranger not just into his family's home, but into _Eliza's bed_. The thought makes Angelica's skin crawl. It kindles renewed rage in her heart. Of all the futures she foresaw, how could she not have anticipated _this_?

"You'll sleep in my room tonight," Angelica announces, somewhere between a suggestion and a command.

The bed is large enough to accommodate four adults with space between, but Angelica allows no such distance when they finally settle beneath the bedclothes and blow out the candle. Instead she tucks Eliza close against her, inclining toward her sister, the better to wrap protective arms around her and hold on. Eliza breathes a soft, helpless sound and burrows closer.

"I've got you," Angelica whispers. "I'm here."

"It shouldn't hurt like this," Eliza says. "I've heard the way women talk. All my life I've heard such things. Men are wanderers by nature. They are _weak_. Why should I expect otherwise just because this one belongs to me?"

"Hush," Angelica says. "That's a foolish thing to say. You had _every right_ to expect better." After all, Angelica was the one to guide her. Angelica saw him first, loved him first, encouraged her sister to accept Alexander's hand. She could as easily have cautioned retreat and rejection; no matter how smitten, Eliza would have listened to her counsel.

It's not only Alexander who has let Eliza down. It's also Angelica, for steering their paths together in the first place.

She's startled when Eliza moves more deliberately in the darkness, sliding against her, and her breath catches a moment later when Eliza's warm mouth covers her own. A soft but unmistakable press of lips. An intimacy they have not shared in years.

It's an intimacy Angelica might even welcome if she could trust where it's coming from. But she knows better. She knows her sister far too well, and Eliza is not thinking clearly. Betrayed by the man who vowed he would never hurt her, struggling to find her way.

Angelica has long since made peace with the complicated and all-consuming love she holds for Eliza. She no longer dreams of damnation and hellfire for wanting—and even occasionally accepting—a closeness that sisters should not share. But here, now, in this moment? Eliza is in pain. And no matter how welcome distraction might be, this is not the time for such transgressions.

She waits until Eliza subsides rather than push her away, but there is still finality in her tone when she says, "Eliza, stop."

" _Please_ ," Eliza says, and there is more emotion in that one word than she's shown in all the hours since Angelica's arrival.

"No, my love." Angelica presses the words into Eliza's temple, a different sort of kiss but no less feeling. "Not tonight. Not like this."

The dam breaks with Angelica's refusal. Eliza breathes a wounded sound and buries her face in Angelica's chest. She shakes in Angelica's arms as the illusion of control finally shatters.

"I'm sorry," Angelica murmurs, rubbing small circles into the small of Eliza's back.

Eliza only sobs in answer.

"I know." It's a wonder Angelica's voice remains steady. Tears sting hot and wet in the corners of her eyes, and there is a chill of anger in her chest, jagged edges that grow sharper with every measured breath.

An eternity passes before Eliza stops crying. An hour at most, but it feels endless, and more than anything Angelica hates that there is nothing she can do. Her sister is in agony, and there is _nothing she can do_.

She gives Eliza her handkerchief in the moments that follow. And now, at last, Eliza begins to truly settle. Wipes her eyes and nose, draws a deep and shaky breath. A moment later she is tucked close against Angelica's side once more.

"Would you leave him if you could?" Angelica asks. She is carding slow fingers through her sister's hair, a calming rhythm. Perfectly in time with the slow rise and fall of shared breath between them.

Eliza is quiet so long Angelica thinks she won't answer.

Then, belatedly, "No. I couldn't. The children..."

Angelica hums a noncommittal sound.

Another endless silence, and Eliza admits, "It's not only the children."

"I know." Angelica presses a kiss to the top of her sister's head. "I love him, too. Even if I could _easily_ wring his neck with my bare hands right now."

Eliza chokes a laugh as brittle as broken glass. "Please don't strangle my husband. I would hate to see you tried as a murderess."

Angelica snorts. It's a relief, even if only for an instant. A hint of humor to reassure her that her sister is still _in there_ beneath the cascade of numbness and grief.

But all too quickly they both fall sober, and there is sorrow in Eliza's voice when she says, "I hate him."

"No you don't." Angelica knows her sister too well to fall for such a transparent bluff. Eliza is not capable of hate. "Do you want to sail for England with me?"

"I can't. Even if I brought the children... If I leave, then our father will have no one." And they both know all too well that Phillip Schuyler will never leave this new and tenuous nation.

"What will you do?"

Another silence, uncertain and wild as lightning.

Finally her sister's arms tighten around Angelica's waist, and Eliza admits, "I don't know."

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: **[Icarus](https://dreamlittleyo.dreamwidth.org/103669.html)**


End file.
